


No Regrets

by der_tanzer



Series: Catbread [37]
Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:17:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After twenty years, Ted still worries about what Murray gave up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Regrets

Murray turned on his back with a yawn, stretching very carefully so he didn’t hit Ted in the face, or dig his bony skull into his thigh. After twenty years together they still spent most of their evenings right here, Ted slouched into the sofa and Murray lying full-length with his head pillowed in Ted’s lap. The only change over the decades was in Ted’s thighs, which weren’t as thickly muscled as in earlier years.

At least that was the only change Murray noticed. So far as he was concerned, they may as well have moved into their little house just yesterday. 

It was Ted who felt old and different, even now with his cheerful little geek laid out on the sofa, watching _True Grit_ for the tenth time through glasses that were newer yet taped because he still broke them at least once a month. Ted would have bought him a new pair every week if he wanted them, but Murray always laughed and told him to save his money for something good. 

Ted stroked Murray’s face lightly as he rolled over and looked up, his yawn changing to a soft smile. Ted was saving up to get him a twenty-four karat ring set all the way around with tiny diamonds. He knew it wasn’t necessary to shower his love with jewelry—that special light in his chocolate brown eyes would shine for Ted no matter what—but it pleased him to give Murray everything he wanted.

Everything that he _could_ give him.

Murray pressed his cheek against Ted’s abdomen, snuggling into the hard layer of muscle that covered a surprisingly small bulge of fat. Ted plucked his glasses carefully from his nose before the bowing stem could snap and laid them carefully on the back of the sofa.

“You want to go to bed, kid?” Murray was somewhere in his fifties now, Ted didn’t bother to keep count, but he would always be his kid.

“In a minute,” he said, lifting Ted’s shirt and kissing his belly, ticking lightly with his tongue.

For a few seconds Ted let it go on, cradling his skull in one hand and stroking his face with the other. Then he lifted Murray’s head gently away and pulled his shirt back down.

“Do you ever have any regrets?” he asked, looking down into Murray’s eyes through glasses of his own, wire rims that had never been broken.

“Regrets? I guess. I mean, doesn’t everyone? I probably won’t get to work on the first truly intelligent computer, and you know I always thought I’d be the one building it. And I never got to train a border collie for sheepdog trials. I always thought that’d be fun. And I still haven’t mastered Russian, even though—”

“That’s not what I mean,” Ted interrupted gently. “I mean about settling down with me.”

“Oh. No, why would I? It’s not like you wouldn’t have let me have a dog, and I certainly had time for language lessons, I just never got around to it.”

“Are you missing the point on purpose?”

“Um, I don’t think so,” Murray said in his thoughtful way. “I must not have understood the question.”

“I mean because I…” He trailed off, paused a few seconds, and tried again. “Because I was your first. Do you ever regret not getting to play the field a little? Seeing what was out there before you married the first guy you slept with?”

“What, do I regret spending my life with the first man who ever loved me? No, Lieutenant, I don’t.”

“I sure tried hard not to let you know I was in love with you. You could’ve—you could’ve said you wanted to see other people and I woulda understood. I’d have waited.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Murray chuckled. “You would have killed anyone who tried to touch me and you know it.”

“Well, I’da wanted to,” he said gruffly. “Look, it’s not like I wanted you sleeping around and taking notes, I just wonder if you wish you had. If _you_ ever wonder what you missed out on.”

“I didn’t miss out on anything,” Murray said confidently. He sat up and wrapped his arms, still as long and bony as ever, around Ted’s neck and kissed him with an insistent confidence that was equal to his words. “You’re my best friend. You love me and protect me and accept me for exactly who I am. Except for my family, and Nick and Cody, no one else has ever done that. 

“And you’re a great lover,” he went on, much to Ted’s embarrassment and pleasure. “I can’t imagine anyone else enjoying me as much as you do, or—or being so willing to give me what I need. How could anyone be better than the man who knows me better than I know myself?”

“You never even considered,” Ted asked, clearly teasing now, “that you coulda taken what I showed you and taught it to some pretty nerd your own age?”

“I never thought of that,” he said honestly. “I guess it’s too late now,” he added with a laugh.

“Well, yeah. You’re old, too. But you don’t regret not leaving when you were young and cute?”

“Nope. And I’m still cute,” Murray insisted, beginning to pout. It was too adorable to resist and Ted drew him closer, biting his lower lip before guiding him into a deep, lingering kiss.

“We should go to bed,” Ted said when he pulled away. The movie was over and Murray’s body was so warm and sweet in his arms.

“Yeah, let’s go to bed,” Murray whispered. “You have no idea how much I want a good cuddle right now.”

“Is that all you want?”

“It is. Take me to bed and cuddle me, okay?” Murray put his glassed back on, got up and took his hand. He tugged gently and Ted rose stiffly to his feet, joints cracking. They went to the bedroom still holding hands.

***

Murray stretched out beside Ted and snuggled against him, shrugging Ted’s arm over his shoulders. He stretched one long leg across Ted’s thighs and settled down with a contented little groan. Murray might be the younger of the two in this relationship but he was by no means a young man. Lying down still felt good and their bed was a noticeable improvement over the old sofa, just as skin to skin contact was better than snuggling through clothes. Murray pressed his cock lightly to Ted’s hip but it wasn’t hard and he didn’t care.

“You weren’t my first, you know,” he said softly.

“What?” Murray felt Ted’s heart leap beneath his ear and smiled to himself. “Baby, what the fuck are you talking about? Who did—when did you…?”

“You know this, Lieutenant. I told you in the beginning that I’d been with a couple of guys before. One in the Army and one later, a man I worked with right before I came to King Harbor. I was over at his place one night working out bugs in a game we were designing and one thing led to another. I never told you the details but you knew.”

“I guess I remember that,” Ted murmured. “Vaguely. But you also told me, right before I fucked you the first time, that you’d never…”

Murray could tell his lover was having a hard time with this, that it was hurting Ted terribly to imagine him in another man’s bed. But he had a point to make and this was the only way he could think of.

“I remember that conversation word for word, my darling catbread love. You asked me if I’d ‘ _ever really been with_ ’ a man. Since you knew I’d fooled around a little I assumed you meant ‘ _been properly fucked by_ ’. I said no, because I hadn’t. I’d been kissed, sucked and fondled, but not fucked. That _was_ what you meant, right?”

“Yeah, I guess it was,” he said slowly. “Baby, it don’t matter. It never did, okay? You’re with me now and that’s enough.”

“Yes, but now I want to finish making my point.” Murray kissed his throat, rubbing his lips tenderly over the prickly gray stubble. “You wanted to know if I regretted choosing you without trying anyone else. I just want you to know that I did try it out as much as I wanted to and it _was_ a choice. I don’t have any regrets, none at all, about how my love life has gone. I’m glad I got a little experience before I met you. I found out that I like men better than women and I don’t have to wonder about what I might’ve missed with other men.”

“Not even what it would’ve been liked to fuck one of ‘em?”

“If I wanted to know that I would’ve done it. They both wanted to.”

There was a long pause as Murray waited for Ted to speak. The trembling hands on his body, one cradling his head and the other rubbing up and down his thigh, told him everything he needed to know. But he wanted to make his point so completely that this would never come up again.

“Why didn’t you?” Ted finally asked. His voice was as shaky as his hands and Murray kissed his throat again.

“Because I didn’t like them enough. I liked what they _did_ okay, but I didn’t really like _them_ that much. It was just—fooling around. I wanted to wait for a man I could really trust. I wasn’t going to let just _anyone_ inside me.”

“Wait, you choose me because you _trusted_ me? Jesus, after twenty years I thought sure I’d already heard the craziest thing you could say. How could you trust _me_ more than you did a—an actual friend?”

Murray shrugged and answered with a contented smile.

“Just a feeling. You were kind. Patient. And I knew you. If you were going to hurt me you had a hundred chances when no one was looking. I didn’t have to wait until I took my clothes off to find out if you had a bite behind your bark.”

“Baby, that’s crazy. I wasn’t being _kind_ , I was sick. If that’s your standard—I’ll never know how you survived before Nick and Cody took you in.”

“But I wasn’t wrong. You _are_ kind. To me, at least. I knew that the first time I climbed into your bed. The way you kissed my hand—it was beautiful. Everything you did was beautiful, that whole week, every day. Every time you touched me, it was the most wonderful thing in the world. I loved you from that first day. It took ten minutes for you to stop being cranky old Lieutenant Quinlan and become my lover, whether you knew it then or not. I’ll never regret a minute of our life together.”

Ted was quiet for a minute and then went back to his central theme.

“You really turned down a reaming from a cute computer nerd to wait for me?”

“I really did. He was _really_ cute, too. Slim and blond, sort of like Cody without the mustache. The Army major was a big dark haired guy, six foot five with shoulders as wide as a doorway. But that wasn’t what I was looking for. It wasn’t what I needed.”

“And somehow I am?”

“Somehow you are,” Murray laughed. “Are you happy now or do I need to keep digging up the primitive artifacts of my ancient sex life?”

“Nah,” Ted said with a dismissive yawn. “I don’t care about all that.”

Murray wasn’t fooled by Ted’s terrible acting and burst into uncontrollable giggles. Ted reached over and tickled him tortuously up and down his ribs, holding both wrists in one hand so he could neither fight nor escape, and didn’t stop until Murray’s giggles changed to desperate gasps for breath.

“Still think I’m funny?” he asked gruffly as he let go. “Still want to laugh at me?”

“No,” Murray panted. “No, I—I can’t. No more tickling, please.”

“No, no more,” Ted agreed. He gathered Murray into his arms again and they listened for a while to each other’s ragged breathing and racing hearts. 

Murray splayed his lanky body over Ted’s stocky frame and knew he’d never been happier, even with the surprise tickle attack. The best part was, with nothing at all in their past to regret, tomorrow would be happier still.


End file.
